Freedom - Blog 7 Freedom Saturday 24 November

Ian Whit on the quill

Coming up to a week at Sea and I’m wondering if I’m on the right boat.
Firstly there are 2 Haworths on board and I have to report , no arguments have taken place. In fact there has barely been a raised voice .
Secondly we have become , what I would describe as a respectable well behaved crew.
We shower daily , eat well and together , play cards but don’t gamble , drink but not alcohol , exercise , attend our Watches promptly and generally seem to be rolling along with one another without any issues.
Now I appreciate that I maybe still hallucinating from the mushroom stroganoff or I maybe asleep and it’s all a pleasant dream but whatever it is , I’m enjoying it while I can.
Yesterday saw a day of significant activity , well from our mouths at least. As Stu mentioned yesterday , the boys did a gybe at 3 am ( kindly leaving Simon and i to enjoy our slumber ) and that was it .We sailed downwind all day and spent the day gassing . That’s not quite true , Simon caught his second fish but again didn’t land it ; see earlier comment re hallucinations.
The joy of being on a boat with men of a certain age , is our that conversations are circular and we are able to discuss the same topic repeatedly; sometimes returning to the topic previously discussed within the hour. Amazingly this chat continues from dawn to dusk when we turn to one another and say , crickey where did the day go . Oh well , Good night.
To be fair to CJ , which I tend to find difficult , he’s doing a top job on the navigation. Our task is to sail as direct a route as possible but to avoid any no / light wind areas which lie between us and St Lucia. This involves skirting around the area of high pressure that lies in our way and would slow our progress. CJ manages this by studying his downloaded weather charts and then twitching our course by a couple of degrees and the sails by a couple of inches , and so far his magic seems to be working. OK enough praise for this blog.
Stu continues to be CJs vital foil , ensuring that he doesn’t get carried away and verifies decisions that are to be made . Nige is becoming the Bow Man and is starting to look comfortable wrapped in rope on the pulpit and Simon continues to supply us with imaginary fish.
We have just dropped the Spinny after she was up for about 50 hours , checked for wear and tear , fixed a couple of small holes and raised her again. So we are now all exhausted , so it’s over and out from Freedom on Saturday lunchtime xx